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The water sloshed in the pilgrim’s battered leather boots. The pink fur along the brim was getting damp and it made him nervous. Those things cost a fortune then.

He looked out at the vast coastline of what would soon be termed “The New World.” New indeed, and frightening and brutal. The New, Frightening, Brutal World. A stupid name. Indulgent and decadent–two things the pilgrims were not.

Jacob began plodding through the shin-high water. He was carrying a leather bag full of gold coins and jars of oil and a few cans of Mountain Dew Code Red. His face was contorted in a frustrated and pained grimace–his cape of pure Indian silk had gotten wet. He’d just had it embroidered with his initials: “JS.”

“Where do we go from here?” Jacob’s first mate, Thomas asked. Thomas was the first person Jacob had had sex with. Thomas was Jacob’s first mate.

The sand beneath Jacob’s feet reminded him of the blonde hair of a woman he had once known as a boy. She was the village’s most prominent lunatic and her hair was always full of dead fish and twigs and stuff.

Roughly a hundred yards from where Jacob stood, Thomas still back on the sandbar thirty feet to his back (Jacob had never answered his question), the tree line shown verdant and strong. So straight and stark in contrast from the soft, sandy beach as to look almost man made. Like a great fence. Jacob, the pilgrim, stood contemplating the image. Was the fence to keep he and his kind out, or was it perhaps to keep something else in. He shuddered, imagining the illimitable number of unknowable dangers awaiting him. The rest of the crew was rowing in on row boats, unloading a few crates onto the shore. Thomas was still out on the sandbar. At some point in the night, a great wave swept Thomas away and he died an excruciating, lonely, gay death.

The first night was full of many things, but sleep was not one of them for the awestruck and weary travelers. They all lay awake, some talking, some simply staring into the sky, alight with a countless number of stars against the inky black of the night sky. Although they’d made camp at the tree line, the breeze was still strong of the sea and danced along their skin like the calming, gentle touch of a lover.

The next day, work began.

The men explored for hours for a place to create a more permanent encampment. Turns out nobody had had time to make a map of the New World yet–it was really new.

The day’s labors ended up being mostly fruitless, except for the guys who went foraging and found some fruit. Their day was fruitful. The entire camp ate fruit for dinner. They ate the delicious, juicy, orange fruit.

Jacob woke up in the night, something trembling in his gut. It felt as if some animal was trapped in his stomach and was attempting to claw its way out–through his butt hole.

Rolling over, Jacob saw that the fire that had been burning bright when he went to sleep had calmed considerably, bathing the area with significantly less warmth and a soothing, red-orange glow. Jacob got up from his pallet and began stumbling into the forest. He was careful not to step on anyone. He still stepped on three or four guys, though. Agility is hard when you have an anus clinched so tightly that you can feel individual oxygen atoms escaping it.

He broke into the quiet forest. He cared little for vanity, but did not want to wake his comrades with the doody splash and more than that, didn’t want to step in it later. He continued to trek a bit farther.

Finally, he found his precious rectal oasis. Twenty feet away, beyond earth dusted in pine needles, pecans, and seeds of the region’s mysterious plants, he spotted it. A softly trickling stream–and behind that–a port-a-potty. He began to skip toward it, but had to stop almost immediately, as he almost shat himself.

Jacob swung the blue plastic door, making sure to switch the sign on the door’s handle from “vacant” to “occupied.” He squatted (Jacob didn’t sit on public toilets) and released. As he was making his final wipe, a knock came from the door.

“Occupied,” Jacob said, pulling his pants up. The knock sounded again. “This room is occupied, I said,” Jacob repeated. The knock sounded once more. Jacob turned the sign back to “vacant” and opened the door. Before him stood an Indian man. His eyes alight with what Jacob could discern was a mix of terror and fascination. The man was well-built and young. He wore a necklace of homespun rope and on the rope were beads of various colors–all of them beautiful. “You might want to let that air out for a few minutes,” Jacob said, sidestepping past the stranger.

The stranger grabbed Jacob by the arm. Jacob yelped, frightened by the man’s sudden aggression. And Jacob thought he saw a mouse. The timing was actually quite incredible.

The stranger began to mime eating from a bowl. He then patted his stomach. Assuming he was asking about the settlers’ food situation, Jacob mimed eating of fruit then dealing with explosive, late-night diarrhea. The Indian man grimaced and did the same motions again.

“Ah, I understand!” Jacob exclaimed. “Yes, we have no food.” He waved his hands in a signal of negation, then performed the Indian man’s motion for “food.”

The stranger motioned for Jacob to follow. Jacob did. They walked for some time, the stranger at times moving almost too fast for Jacob to keep up. The man knew the lands like he had built them with his own two hands.

Jacob soon found himself among the tribesmen of the stranger’s origin. They fed him, attempted to communicate with him, and gave him many gifts.

That next day, there was a great feast. The Indian man, who would later be called Squanto, told his tribe of the struggling white men and their terrible hunger. The tribe immediately called forth all those who had a surplus and gave the pilgrims food to help them survive. The tribe taught the white men how to work the plow and how to plant and where all the good port-a-potties were.

“Wow, this is awesome,” Jacob said to his men, who murmured in agreement. “I think I know how I can make it better though,” he said, and proceeded to enslave, betray, and kill nearly each and every one of those people.